The Amphibian Avenger

Over-dosing on poison dart frogs in Bogota

Me sporting this season's must have accessory - the poison dart frog brooch, which doubles as a weapon. If attacked, simply ram the frog into your assailants mouth and hop away. So much more fashionable than mace. 

Adolfo Amezquita is a professional frog licker. A dream job presumably, for a hopeless toad junkie like this blog’s great friend David Theiss. Except that Adolfo doesn’t lick them to get high, he does it to figure out how poisonous they are. This sounds like the very definition of foolhardy behaviour but Adolfo’s been slurping on frogs for over 20 years now and has lived to tell the tale, so there must be method to his madness. 

I'm hanging out with Adolfo in his lab in Bogota, Colombia. He hands me a bright orange specimen and asks me if I want to feel the burn, the intensity of which tells you how poisonous it is. Nervously, I accept. Even though Adolfo’s done toxicology tests on these frogs and knows they’re safe to suck it still seems like a fantastically bad idea. Then there’s the fact that licking is really quite an intimate thing to do to another living creature and not my general getting-to-know-you opening gambit. I’m wondering if we should at least have casually dated before I wipe my tongue across his back. I don’t even know his name.

One of Adolfo's crazy frogs. Thankfully this one doesn't sing.

Nevertheless, I dive straight in with a big swipe and wait. Nothing. Adolfo tells me I have to excite him to get him to release the poison. Now I’m rubbing and licking the frog furiously and feeling very, very weird indeed, and it’s not because of the poison. I didn't come here to molest frogs and I’m sure I should be arrested for this. 

Then a very strong burny numbness spreads across my tongue and lips. This is obviously the frog’s revenge for me jumping to first base without even swapping numbers. You can watch the whole sordid episode below if it hasn’t been banned by Vimeo already for its salacious salivary content.

There is one frog that Adolfo wouldn’t lick - the appropriately named Phyllobates terribilis. Terribilis is the original poison dart frog - the one that the Colombian Embera Indians used to hunt with before they discovered guns. Hunters would simply wipe their blow pipe darts on the frog’s skin and they could still kill a tapir up to a year later. 

That's some sell-by date and makes this little yellow frog Mr Big in the poison stakes, the deadliest animal on the planet. One 5 cm frog packs enough punch to kill 10 men. He's more toxic than the king cobra, funnel web spider and blue ringed octopus put together. But there is of course a difference between venomous and poisonous and to get killed by this frog you'd have to have a very unlucky fall, face plant the forest floor and have a frog hop in your mouth. Or something else equally unlikely. Like flying to Bogota on a whim to lick one in a lab.

Terribilis may be toxic but he makes a great dad - carefully watching over eggs and carrying tadpoles around on his back, making him significantly more dedicated than many men I know. 

The toxin Terribilis produces, an alkaloid called batrachotoxin, is 250 times more potent than strychnine and works on the nervous system. Once it enters the bloodstream, in a matter of minutes the victim loses control of their muscles and dies by suffocation or cardiac arrest. Nasty stuff. 

But poison dart frog's skin alkaloids are currently the subject of intense study for their medicinal use as muscle relaxants, heart stimulants and appetite suppressants. The only problem is that frogs raised in captivity don't produce the same toxins as those in the wild. It's all in the diet apparently - the frog's recycle and adapt their alkaloids from the ants, termites and other itchy scratchy insects they eat. The more varied the diet, the stronger and more complex the toxins. Another reason (if we needed one) for the urgent conservation of frogs and their habitats. 

C'mon let's do the conga...3 of these candy-coloured cuties are in fact all the same species - an oddity that apparently makes no evolutionary sense as predators have to learn to avoid different colours and patterns

When Adolfo's not licking frogs, he's teaching them to watch TV. Or rather, lick TV. Even in the wild, there's a huge variation in the toxicity between species and even individuals within species and he and his students are trying to figure out how and why. One of their many experiments involves playing captive bred frogs cartoons of their favourite bugs (ants, mites and flies) to see if they preferentially choose those with useful alkaloids, which they did. The sight of a frog licking an animated ant off a screen shouldn't be funny, but I thought it was both amusing and amazing in equal measures (sorry for the squealing). 

Adolfo recently discovered a brand new species of dart frog in Colombia. Despite looking completely different, it is actually the sister species of terriblis and toxicology tests have shown its skin also contains the same potent batrachotoxin brew. Adolfo has yet to give it a name and obviously I lobbied hard for Phyllobates amphibian avenger but he was having none of it. 

Having an animal named after someone has become an important money spinner for scientists and conservationists to help fund their work, so he's taking offers. For a few thousand dollars the second most poisonous animal on the planet could bear your name, a rare honour indeed. Adolfo supports important conservation work with these frogs as well as trying to unravel their toxic secrets so it would be money well spent. 

The as-yet unnamed new species of dart frog...which for the time being I like to affectionately call Phyllobates sarah palin

The mind-blowing frogs of Peru

Fear and loathing in Peru. Me and the super psychedelic Phyllomedusa bicolor, who’s skin contains more mind-altering substances than the late Hunter S Thompson’s bathroom cabinet. I love this frog but resisted kissing him for fear of losing what's left of my marbles. 

My amphibian adventure is about to get really interesting. I’m on a fast train to frog central in the jungles of Peru. OK not a fast train, but three flights and a rather slow boat ride. Anyway, I’m swapping the glamour of Rio de Janeiro for a month of mud and mosquitoes in the middle of nowhere. It’s time to go native with the frogs.

  

Welcome to the wild west. My fellow passengers on the river bus are miners, mostly illegal, who come down from the Andes to pan for gold.

My last gasp of civilisation is the jungle town of Puerto Maldonado near the border with Bolivia. From here it’s a 10-hour boat ride up the Madre de Dios river to my final destination, the CICRA Los Amigos biological research station deep in the heart of the Amazon basin. A remote academic island in a vast green sea, that just happens to be the most bio-diverse jungle on the planet. For the next month I’m going to live with a dozen or so field scientists exploring this rainforest and documenting their work as CICRA’s artist in residence. I can’t believe my luck. 

  

CICRA is the Hilton of field stations with 5 star facilities - my own solar powered hut comes complete with its very own gecko family to keep the mossies at bay.

There is also the distinct possibility that a month in the jungle with a limited cast, no phone and an antique internet connection will send me completely mad. I arrive at dinnertime and am almost immediately warned of how intense it can get here. It feels a bit like being dropped into a reality TV show - Big Brother crossed with I’m a Celebrity featuring a cast of zoologists. And millions of biting insects. Here’s hoping I don’t get voted out in the first week or forced to eat witchety grubs to save my career.

 

CICRA = frog geek heaven, the ID chart for the local amphibians lists almost 100 species

But the frogs will keep me sane…as long as I don’t start licking them. The jungle here harbours an amphibian pharmacopoeia stocked with a kaleidoscope of candy coloured frogs whose skins secrete a heady cocktail of chemicals. Amphibian’s skin is their Achilles heal – exceedingly delicate, it has to be permeable enough for them to use as a second lung, and therefore prone to infection (just look at the havoc caused by the skin fungus Chytrid). The toxins it produces are the product of millions of years of evolution and a never-ending chemical war waged against a battery of wannabe parasites. 

As a result my first Peruvian frog-hunt uncovers enough drugs to get me arrested in Kansas (as this video shows).

Amongst the top frogs in the chemical war stakes are the fantastic Phyllomedusa family, also known as Monkey frogs. This is because they live high up in the trees and not because they are the product of some warped hybridisation experiment (for those that were disturbed the first time, I do apologise for including that link again but I couldn’t resist it).

The biggest of the bunch, Phyllomedusa bicolor synthesises an arsenal of chemicals capable of knocking out Pete Docherty, which are secreted in a milky fluid to protect the frog from snakes. These include a long list of peptides such as dermorphin - a painkiller over 30 times stronger than morphine at the cerebral level but bioactive and therefore non-addictive.

The Matses equivalent of popping to the chemist is to subject the monkey frog to a form of medieval torture in order to get it to produce its toxic sweat

The local Matses Indians have long used the giant monkey frog’s sweat in various rituals and cures. Now pharmaceutical companies have cottoned on and are investigating the use of these peptides as treatments for a range of illnesses from Alzheimer's to brain cancer. When these drugs go on sale I think the pharma companies should donate a proportion of sales to saving the frogs that invented the chemicals (and also to the Amazonian tribal people who discovered their uses first). They could consider it as an investment to protect this biomedical treasure trove  that’s still largely waiting to be discovered, before it’s wiped out.  

The first frog I catch in Peru is the utterly alien Phyllomedusa camba, I am so happy I could pop.

I have always wanted to see a monkey frog in the wild and am ecstatic to discover three different species on my first foray into the forest. They are even more spectacular in the flesh – totally otherworldly creatures that advertise their trippy nature with even trippier looks. If William Burrough's designed frogs they would look like these guys with their lurid green waxy skins, go-faster stripes down their side and super puddy fingers. These frogs really blow my mind, without even having to lick them.

  

Big lesbian toads and frog magic in Brazil

  

Ipanema beach - not a lot of frogs here

The first frog I find in Brazil is wearing a wizard’s hat. He belongs to the bar maid in my favourite Sunday afternoon samba spot in Santa Teresa, Rio. She’s had him for several years and he lives on her leg.   

 

The toad looked more shocked than me

Now I love frogs, but even I'd think twice about branding myself permanently with a big fat magical toad. I'm thinking this lady must love them even more than me. And she sort of does. It turns out that her tattoo is a political statement. Sapatao, meaning big toad, is a derisive term for lesbians in Brazil. The bar maid's quite rightly proud of her sexuality and so in order to reclaim the insult she wears a giant toad on her leg as a badge of honour, which I think is very cool. 

I'm tempted to make a joke here about big gay toads in big hats. But I won't. 

Proud to be a big Bufo - the super cool bar maid at my fave samba spot.

I have to come clean. Even though Brazil has the greatest number of amphibian types on the planet – a whopping 811 recorded species - my decision to visit this country has very little to do with frogs and everything to do with samba, surf and caipirinhia’s. I’ve been invited to spend Christmas in Rio with my friend Bindu, who has the world’s most enviable life. A few year's back she wisely swapped her two up two down in Brixton, South London for what I can only describe as a rock star’s mansion in the bohemian hillside suburb of Santa Teresa. She likes to joke that I've visited her more now she lives in Rio than when she lived in SW9. But who can blame me. No-one likes South London. 

It’s unlikely that my frog hunting will go much beyond the beach, Bindu’s pool and the bar’s and samba halls of Santa. But Bindu is keen to help and enters into the spirit by asking her staff (yes, her enviable life also includes staff) whether they have seen any frogs on the property. But they haven't, so I am especially pleased to meet the lesbian toad on the bar maids leg. This will have to be my big Brazilian Bufo break. 

Gratuitous photo of an amazing Brazilian frog that I didn't find during my trip - the tiny and deadly Brazil nut poison dart frog, so-called because it deposits its tadpoles in empty water-logged Brazil nut shells on the forest floor.

But maybe the wizard toad has cast some sort of spell on me, as now the frogs are seeking me out. A few nights later I get a frantic phone call from Bindu telling me to come home immediately. A tiny weeny frog has just hopped into her kitchen and into a plastic lolly-mold that just happens to be on the floor, as if he wants to be caught. Bindu is blown away by this bizarre coincidence and when I get back she’s babbling about how I must have some special magical powers to attract frogs. 

Dramatic reconstruction of Bindu calling me with captured frog in hand.  

Things are about to get even more surreal. A journalist I meet at a party asks if she can interview me about my frog mission for Globo, the national newspaper. In a city that has more murders per hour than almost any other on the planet it’s hard to imagine my frog quest being newsworthy. But perhaps I’m the equivalent of the quirky kitten-stuck-up-the-tree-end-of-the-news story. Whatever, it’s a great opportunity to warn Brazilians about Chytrid (which has been detected in wild populations here) so I happily agree. 

Disclaimer - they made me do that cheesy pose. Honest. The photo shoot was embarrassing to say the least - featuring me pouring with sweat whilst trying to look cool in 40 degree heat. I gave up and let go of all dignity in the end and just did as they told me. Hence the pose, but at least the frogs look good. 

The copy inevitably starts off with jokes about me searching for my frog prince but at least they didn't call me a big toad. Anyway, the frogs get a big plug so I feel satisfied that my trip to Brazil has been worthwhile, and I didn't even have to leave the pool. Next stop, the jungles of Peru where my frog hunting will continue in earnest. 

Frog's legs anyone?

Saint Barrack sins by tucking into frog flesh 

I’m driving through rural Uruguay in a beat-up car with two virtual strangers looking for a frog farm, which may or may not exist. It doesn’t get more random than this. I’ve left a gorgeous sunny day on a beautiful beach behind me, and voluntarily travelled 4 hours by bus back to stinking hot Montevideo to meet up with a couple of herpetologists so that we can spend the afternoon visiting what can best be described as a concentration camp for frogs. I think this is the moment where my amphibian obsession has truly taken control of my senses.

  

Grenouilles-in-waiting, minus garlic. 

Frog farming is big business here in South America with millions of live frogs exported every year to feed a growing global market. The French are obviously a major customer, and since they have literally eaten all their native frogs, they rely on imports to satisfy their desire to graze upon tiny garlicky thighs. But they’re not alone in their taste for frog flesh - the US, South America and China are also major fans. And the Japanese like to wrap their lips around frog sashimi, as this rather disturbing video shows.

(One can only dream of a parallel universe where frogs rule the earth and a bunch of Japanese business frogs are served the odious presenter of this show’s bald head on ice as a lunch-time appetiser)

Although Brazil leads the way in industrial frog farming, 15 years ago small farms started to pop up here in Uruguay, a country with a long and illustrious history in the meat processing game. For 120 years their economy flourished on the production of anonymous canned meat products and the border town of Fray Bentos became the corned beef capital of the world. 

Fray Bentos, thankfully the factory closed before they could branch into processed frog meat. 

The town of Fray Bentos is very proud of its place in pie history and is now home to what must be the world’s only processed meat museum (now there’s a fun afternoon for all the family – watch out Disney). Hopping on the frog farm bandwagon must have been a natural step for a country with a knack for producing alien foodstuffs and harbouring Nazi war criminals.

 
Pickled two-headed cow on display at the Fray Bentos processed meat museum - presumably to showcase something even less appetising than one of their pies.

I’m keen to see one of these frog farms with my own eyes. So I’ve arranged to meet two local herpetologists I found online in the hope that they can take me. It’s not the kind of request you get every day – a foreign woman writing to you and asking to be taken to a frog farm but Claudio and Francisco, whilst visibly nervous are also very obliging. 

The only trouble is most of the farms didn’t survive the 2002 financial crash. There is only one left and we don’t know exactly where it is or who owns it. But Uruguay is a small place and after asking around we eventually find ourselves at Washington, the caretaker’s house. He thinks there’s nothing strange about our desire to see his work-place and jumps on his bicycle and takes us on a guided tour of the farm.

Me, Claudio and Washington at the start of our guided tour 

My main reason for wanting to see one of these farms is that they are known to be a major factor in the global spread of Chytrid, the deadly fungus that is contributing to the amphibian extinction crisis. The problem is that American bullfrogs (the frog of choice for frog farming) can carry the fungus without succumbing to its fatal grasp. Studies have revealed that most of the South American farms test positive for Chytrid. The farmed frogs then carry the fungus with them to any market or town they’re exported to, thereby spreading the fungus both nationally and internationally.

 
 Swimming in dead tadpole soup. Nice.

As soon as I walk in the door I realise that this is one of those be-careful-what-you-wish-for moments. The first thing that hits you is the fetid stench. Then the constant drip-drip of water. There are dead animals everywhere. Floating listlessly in the water amongst the live tadpoles and frogs. 

 

Altogether it’s an utterly depressing place - dank and smelling of death. It would be an uncomfortable experience for anyone let along three frog-lovers. I feel guilty for dragging Claudio and Francisco into this gruesome situation. It’s doubly awkward as we’re essentially strangers. None of us really knows how to react (particularly me) so we all smile benignly through the horror. 

 
Nervous smiles all round as we commemorate the happy occasion with a photo 

The farm is in two sections. There’s the main production area with big concrete tanks full of frogs in various stages of metamorphosis. Then there is the romance room where a select group of adults get down to production. It’s slightly more deluxe, compared to the barren concrete vats next door, but it’s not exactly what you’d call romantic.

 

The swingers room at the frog farm, take your partner by the hand and lead her to...a slimy white bucket

In the middle of the room there is a shallow concrete tank where the frogs hang out when they’re not copulating – a sort of getting-to-know-each-other jacuzzi area. The white troughs stationed around the edge are where the action happens. It seems the frogs like a bit of privacy and so each couple has the dignity of their own dirty white plastic bucket to do it in. 

 
The stud, father of millions of fungus carrying frogs

This farm has tested positive for Chytrid in the past and it’s a creepy sensation to know that these frogs are all infected. I ask Washington about escapees and he tells me not to worry - if he hears a bullfrog calling in the nearby woods, he chases after it and shoots it with his rifle. Wow, this place really is an amphibian Abu Graib. But even with the escapees killed I’m still very concerned about humans walking in and out of the farm spreading Chytrid on their boots wherever they go. Claudio and Francisco have already detected the fungus in selected wild frogs populations in Uruguay and you’ve got to wonder whether farms like this one could have been the original source. 

In search of the supermodel toad

Melanophryniscus montevidensis - the Naomi Campbell of the amphibian world. This dark, venomous beauty hangs out with Argentinian billionaires in the sand dunes of Uruguay 

I'm leaving Argentina and heading to Punta del Este in Uruguay, also known as the St Tropez of South America. Admittedly this is not the most obvious place to be looking for frogs (of the amphibian kind) but I've been invited by a friend of a friend, Miguel Reynal, who just happens to be a very well respected conservationist so I'd be silly to say no. 

Shopping Punta style

Punta is super glitzy - high rises, high prices and plenty of plastic surgery. There's not a lot of subtlety here - as demonstrated by the shop names. This is where the South American super rich come to play, jetting in for the weekend and staying in beachfront villas that cost up to $30,000 a week to rent in high season. The small towns and windswept deserted beaches just to the north are super chic and frequented by the likes of Giselle and Naomi Campbell. 

Montevideo Red-bellied toad, relaxing on the beach and sporting this season's must-have red and yellow bikini 

The sand dunes here are also home to Melanophryniscus montevidensis, alias the Montevideo red-bellied toad, which has more than a few things in common with Miss Campbell. This incredibly rare black toad may be beautiful but is, in fact, highly toxic. It's skin secretes alkaloids - poisonous chemicals which it sequesters from its diet of termites and ants. This black beauty signals its venomous nature by flashing the dramatic red underside of its hands, feet and belly when frightened, warning potential predators not to mess with it. 

Naomi Campbell displaying the underside of her hands as a warning sign and if further provoked will attack with a mobile phone.

The sad reality is that I have more chance of spotting a supermodel on these sand dunes than I do a red-bellied toad. Their numbers are in steep decline. It seems they don't like to share their sand dunes with luxury penthouses, bronzed beach bunnies and cavorting Argentinean playboys looking for wife number 7. High-end tourism and red-bellied toads don't mix.

However I am pleased to discover that inland this part of the world is frog heaven. Away from the beach, the fields and ponds are alive with the chirrupy sing song of amorous amphibians. During a heavy rainstorm on the first night I run into another toad, Rhinella dorbignyi. He is literally sitting on my doorstep waiting to meet me. 

Rhinella are the family of so-called beaked toads and have ossified snouts, not unlike the late Michael Jackson's

He may be common, but he's a gorgeous lime green burrowing toad who normally spends all day in his dug-out home waiting for something tasty to walk past but has been lured out by the rain and is looking for a mate. He is my first frog prince in Uruguay and I am delighted to meet him, although I'm not sure the feeling is reciprocated. 

 The happy couple - it was love at first sight

The little shop of horrors

Goodbye Chile and hello Argentina - the border at 10,000 feet.

I thought the words 'enjoy' and 'bus ride' didn't belong together. Like Peter and Katie, or Simon Cowell and lovely chap. But I was wrong. The Andes Mar Express from Santiago to Mendoza is an incredible journey and certainly knocks the hell out of the 55 from Hackney to Oxford street. The scenery is epic, passing over the Andes and past some of the highest peaks on the continent. 

I'm excited. A new country means new frogs. Given that Argentina boasts the highest diversity of ecosystems of any country in the world – over 30 separate environments from deserts plains to steaming jungles - there have got to be some awesome amphibians out there. 

The Argentine horned toad alias the Rottweiler of the herp world. Makes a great pet apparently. Or bodyguard.

Top of my wish list is the Argentine horned toad. Fondly known in herp circles as the Pacman frog as it's basically just a giant walking mouth that will happily swallow anything in sight including animals significantly further up the food chain. Check out this video of one making a meal out of a live mouse. 

I'm not sure what's more disturbing about that video. The sight of a frog wrestling a mouse to death in a tupperware colosseum or the gleeful cheers from the Pac-man's owners like throwing a mouse to the frogs is some acceptable form of gladiatorial event. Youtube is full of videos like this and I'm sad to say that the Argentine horned toad has become a popular pet freak show, with websites devoted to it. Just don't let it near the chihuahua. Anyway, I'm on a quest to find an Argentine horned toad in its native land and survive to type the tale with my fingers still intact.

Gethin and his family giving advise on how to greet a hungry horned toad. Bear costume optional, but highly recommended.

I’m staying in Argentina with my friends Gethin and Megan in the sleepy city of Mendoza. This is wine country and most of the tourists that come here are middle-class wine buffs looking to get gently sloshed on a vineyard tour. But I'm here to look for frogs which certainly flummoxes the local tourist bureau. I ask around and no one can help me with my mission and then someone suggests I pay a visit to the local grocery store belonging to Joaquin Lopez. 

Joaquin is an amateur taxidermist and likes to display his creations in his shop, next to the butchers counter. Nice. I’m guessing the health and safety restrictions here in Mendoza are not as strict as in the UK but anyway it certainly makes you think twice about buying his sausages. It's hard to capture the place in a photo - so I made this short video to give you a better idea of quite how unsettling the whole arrangement is. 

Amongst the cornucopia of slightly misshapen animals are two types of toad - including what looks like an Argentine horned toad, complete with plastic staring eyes. Bingo. Mission accomplished.

On special this week - stuffed toads, buy one get one free

Preserved horned toad - at least this one doesn't bite

My thrill of finding frogs is eclipsed by my incredulity at Joaquin’s fetish for mixing dead animals (not for sale by the way) with food purchasing. I’m keen to meet the man and expect some sort of super freak but Joaquin is a pretty normal chap, just with a very strange and very public hobby. 

Joaquin and one of his dramatic pieces - toad versus spider

Now I’m no expert in stuffing animals but it strikes me that he isn’t the most accomplished of taxidermists. Most of the animals are a little lumpy to say the least. In fact, Dr Frankenstein could have done a better job. This is explained when Joaquin tells me that he's self taught. Ever since he was a boy he wanted to preserve animals. He started out by stuffing them with meat before discovering that sawdust and wires offered more longevity. And less smell.

 A fantastically frozen Mr Fox

Thanks to the shop he's developed something of a reputation and people send him dead animals from far and wide. He showed me inside his tardis-like fridge which contained an entire zoo of frozen species waiting to be preserved Joaquin-style. 

One of his proudest creations is a stuffed poodle which was literally frightened to death. Apparently it had just been in the poodle parlour, having its hair done when it encountered a large angry dog outside, had a heart attack and died on the spot. At least its hair looked good though. 

In death the poodle shows no fear

Joaquin is not a hunter and does not condone killing animals. In fact it's a lifelong love of nature and its diversity that has led him to this curious pastime. It's his desire to preserve endangered species so that they can be remembered when they have disappeared. With a collection that spans over 30 years he is sure to have already preserved extinct species making him the strangest conservationist I have ever met. 

The sci-fi story of a killer toad

The Avenger apprehends the suspect, before interrogating.

Claudio, Andrew and I are driving 40 minutes out of Santiago, Chile to investigate reports of a killer toad. This mass murderer, known to eat his victims AND their babies, has been on the run for decades, his rampage unabated. Meet Xenopus, the African clawed toad, one of the chief baddies in the global amphibian crisis.

With a name straight out of Star Trek and the looks to match, you couldn't design a freakier bad guy. From the Frankenstein stitches down his back to his fat, flat body and blank, bug-eyed stare. With no tongue, no ear drums and no eyelids, Xenopus is oblivious to evil. Not even his mother loved him - and would have gladly gobbled him up at the slightest sign of a food shortage. 

We arrive at a large rural estate and meet with our eye-witness, Jurgen, who hands us a bag of tadpoles and a bucket of toads. He tells us his property has been infested with alien amphibians since 1978. With obvious emotion in his voice, he laments that 2 years after the toads arrival he had his first "silent spring", completely absent of the much-loved chirrupy sing-song of the native frogs. So he went searching for them in places that were previously carpeted with frogs or inky black with tadpoles and found nothing. They had gone. Apparently forever. Jurgen suspects they may have been eaten by this new found foreign frog.

 

Among the species lost to Jurgen is the super cool four-eyed frog which boasts fake eyes on its bum to intimidate would-be predators. Try staring that one out.

We examine Jurgen's catch and confirm the suspect as Xenopus. Jurgen wants to know what African clawed toads are doing in Chile. Well, its quite a tale of human misadventure. Xenopus might look evil, but as usual our exploits put a bug-eyed Frankenstein toad in the shade. 

The African clawed toad is something of a scientific superstar. It all started in the 1930's when scientists discovered that Xenopus could be used as the world's first reliable pregnancy test. Yes you heard that right. No, Xenopus doesn't turn blue if you pee on it. But apparently if you inject a female toad with a pregnant woman's wee within 24 hours she will start laying eggs. 

The toad test replaced the far less reliable rabbit test and had the added advantage that the toad didn't die and could be re-used! I'm not sure if they sold home testing kits (the mind boggles) but the toad test reigned supreme as the most effective pregnancy test well into the 60's. Amazing but true. 

 

I just want to know how the hell the scientists found out? Did someone wee on one by accident? Or was it something altogether more sinister.

Anyway, the end result was that Xenopus were bred in their millions, exported to labs all around the world and went on to become the most studied amphibian on the planet. A model for biological research, Xenopus was the first vertebrate to be cloned and even went into space. 

Xenopus has been de-coded, re-built, documented inside and out but the one thing that scientists didn't discover until it was too late is that this globe-trotting toad doesn't travel alone. When it left Africa it took another of the local residents with it - the deadly Chytrid fungus - which it carries on its skin without being infected. 

All of which would be fine if the toads had just stayed in the lab, but clearly they didn't. For instance when the little blue strip finally replaced the toad as the pregnancy test of choice, millions were released into the wild all around the world, taking the fungus with them and spreading it to native frog populations which lacked immunity. 

Claudio tells Jurgen that the Xenopus infesting his property are thought to be yet another of Pinochet's crimes. Shortly after the military junta took over the airport in 1973, a consignment of Xenopus arrived by plane. Not accustomed with what to do with them, the military let them loose and they can now be found as far as 300 km's from the capital. 

We take the toads back to the lab and swab them for Chytrid. If they test positive, which other Xenopus found in the area have, then it might be that Jurgen's precious four-eyed frog will never be seen on his farm again. Because once the fungus gets in the local water system it is currently impossible to eradicate, making re-introduction of native frogs pointless. That is, until we find a cure. Something which needs more money and more research. So, if you feel like supporting Claudio and Andrew in their work then visit the EDGE website and donate money to them by clicking here.

Somewhere over the rainbow

We’re driving to our penultimate Darwin’s frog monitoring session when something completely amazing happens. We are stopped in our tracks by a magnificent rainbow, literally blocking the road ahead.

  

As we drive towards it, it just gets bigger and brighter until it’s hovering beside us, a magical multicoloured arc hanging in the valley. It’s simply too spectacular to be ignored. And although we're late, we all bundle out of the car to try and capture it.

Now maybe I’ve been in the field for too long and am starting to lose it, but I take it as a sign and start joking about how there will be a pregnant male frog at its end – the holy grail of our quest. Maybe there is even some sort of spooky connection between rainbows and frogs. After all, they come in all the right colours – you get red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet ones. Claudio and Andrew smile and nod politely at my stunning lack of science. 

 

Anyway we’re all a bit giddy by the time we arrive at the site and before we’ve even started the transect, Andrew spots a gorgeous green Rhinoderma hopping perilously close to Claudio’s foot. It's as if it wants to be caught. I am given the honour of performing my first swab on this frog – my final initiation into the squad. 

 

During the swab, Claudio thinks he sees something move in the frog's throat. Andrew and I take this with a pinch of salt as by this stage Claudio is clinically obsessed and every frog we find he thinks is up the duff. The odds of finding a pregnant male on this trip are worse than winning the Grand National. Nevertheless Claudio, ever the optimist, takes a closer look…

Oh my God. We realise that this is the same frog we found the day before which Claudio suspected of carrying eggs. He was right after all. I have yet to see what they have seen and we’re all keen to capture it on film but do not want to stress the frog out - the consequences are too grim. 

Darwin's frog demonstrating his best vanishing act party trick

But the cool things about these frogs is that one of their responses to danger is to lie dead still on their backs – their black and white mottled underbelly mimicking a piece of lichen. They stay like this for a good ten to fifteen minutes and it’s the perfect opportunity to film this father-to-be’s swollen stomach.

I wait anxiously for about 10 minutes before there is any sign of movement, and then suddenly it happens. Wow. It looks like he has maybe two tadpoles inside him and perhaps some un-hatched eggs.  This little chap will carry his babies around with him, protecting them from predators while they metamorphose inside him, before he burps up the fully developed froglets in about 6 weeks time.

We have been outrageously lucky to have witnessed such a miracle of evolution in the wild. Then, incredibly the next day we find another pregnant male. This one is carrying at least eight tadpoles, the sight of which is breathtakingly surreal. Like something out of Alien his entire belly erupts into a cascade of swirling tails and wriggling heads. I manage to capture the whole thing on film before he hops off happily into the night. I am so blown away by the experience and the honour of witnessing such an intimate scene, that I nearly cry. 

I only hope that when Claudio gets the results back from the lab that these remarkable little frogs are Chytrid free. It would be devastating to lose one of the last wild populations of this amazing animal, which has evolved such an incredible strategy to ensure the success of future generations, only to be screwed up by human carelessness.

Here's one I caught earlier

So I thought I was pretty good at catching frogs. I liked to think I was something of a master - the result of many years spent honing my skills. A sort of human heron, but bigger and without feathers. And obviously I don't eat them afterwards.

But it seems that I have been totally outclassed by Claudio and Andrew, who are in another league. These Darwin's frogs are super rare, super tiny and do a great impersonation of a leaf and yet they have both managed to catch several specimens whilst I am still empty handed. It's beginning to bug me. 

Like some sort of bad acid trip, I start seeing frogs everywhere. Beetles whose bums look like frogs...

...and even my frog catching colleagues are starting to look distinctly amphibiany...

Anyway after several days of pouncing victoriously on god knows how many leaves, I finally spot one. What makes me especially happy is the markings on his stomach are shaped like a letter L. He was destined to be Lucy's frog. It was meant to be.

 

 

As you can see from the photo I have now graduated to BLUE GLOVE status. This means that I am now a fully paid up member of the froq squad and officially allowed to touch the little webbed wonders. But weirdly, I don't really want to. Which is very, very unusual. But they are so precious (and also potentially pregnant) that I'm too nervous to fondle them for fear of squashing their delicate little bodies. Manhandling a bullfrog is one thing (a big brutish invasive species) but a tiny little pregnant Darwin's frog is another. Even with the glove.

The single blue glove by the way is not some rubbery homage to the late great Michael Jackson, but rather a bio-security measure. Each frog gets its own glove so we minimise the risk of cross-contamination should any of them carry infectious diseases like the dreaded fungus. 

As with all the frogs, we swab my specimen for Chytrid, measure and photograph him before setting him free in the exact same spot we found him. This is very important as we think these frogs have a very small range - we keep finding the same individuals in their same square foot of moss, day after day. We wonder if this could be a breeding season thing and they are guarding their eggs waiting for the right moment to eat them, but who knows. So little is known about this species that almost everything we observe about them was previously unknown. This is such an incredible thing to be a part of and I realise that compared with studying well-loved species like chimps or pandas, studying amphibians really is like going to the moon - every step is a first for mankind. 

 

And what a step...this may look like a double dog turd disaster but it's actually me and Andrew disinfecting our boots after an amazing day in the field. Only one thing could have made it more perfect...finding a pregnant male.

Loitering by the gents looking for a pregnant frog

At the press conference Rhinoderma claims he's innocent...

It's a 4 hour drive from the tin pot airport in Patagonia to the forests that Darwin's frog calls home. They are like something out of a fairy tale - a surreal mixture of dense bamboo, wild fuschia trees, giant gunnera plants (an oversized relative of the rhubarb with leaves big enough to live under) and lofty trees dripping in moss, all surrounded by snowcapped peaks. A thick mist hangs in the air. It's all very Lord of the Rings. 

 

So we're looking for a 3cm, perfectly camouflaged frog in this vast national park. The words needle and haystack spring to mind but Claudio is confident we're going to succeed. Last year he combed southern Chile for Rhinoderma, checking pristine wilderness locations that were all thought to have healthy populations. He found nothing for a month and was on the verge of despair when he set up camp in this enchanted forest. Nature called and he finally stumbled upon his first specimen by the campsite toilet. It seems Darwin's frog is the George Michael of the amphibian world and likes nothing better than hanging out by the gents. So it's our job to do the same for the next 3 days - which could take some explaining if we get busted. 

So we head straight for the loos and within 5 minutes Andrew has spotted his first Darwin's frog. A juvenile no more than 1cm long. 

The discovery of baby froglets makes us all even more excited about the possibility that we might find a pregnant male - the holy grail of the herp world. Others follow - impressive adult specimens including one that looks like it might have eggs in its throat...it's all very exciting.